


Of Coffee and Catastrophe

by ReminiscentRevelry



Series: Of Fullmetal and Feelings [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ishval Civil War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Triggers, implied royai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22842292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReminiscentRevelry/pseuds/ReminiscentRevelry
Summary: Ed is well aware that a number of the Eastern soldiers were on active duty in Ishval, but he doesn't quite understand the PTSD they deal with until an early morning incident with Colonel Mustang.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Roy Mustang & Riza Hawkeye
Series: Of Fullmetal and Feelings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645903
Comments: 17
Kudos: 349





	Of Coffee and Catastrophe

**Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock**

Ed lowered his book to order his coffee, digging in his pocket for change and realizing he was short a few coins. He didn’t want to charge it to his account, but his watch was handier than his trunk, tucked away in the dorm. He swore under his breath, recounting his coins.

“Language, Fullmetal,” Mustang said dryly from behind him. “Are you short for change?”

Ed, for once, ignored the jab at his stature. “Miscalculated,” he grumbled. “Central Command’s coffee is cheaper by fifty cenz.”

Mustang raised an eyebrow and gave the staffer enough coins to cover his and Ed’s coffees. Ed said nothing as he took his mug and sat at a table, nose buried in his book again.

“More research?” Mustang asked, sitting across from him. The cafeteria was empty, the two of them the only occupants. The cafeteria staff didn’t pay them any mind, busy prepping their stations for the rest of the day. Early as it was, they only had coffee ready at the moment, not expecting patrons for a few more hours. Mustang welcomed the quiet, knowing his day would be noisy and busy with his piles of paperwork and his team close by. It was always louder when the Elrics were in town.

“Hawkeye lent me this book,” Ed said, “after she read my report. She thinks I should read it. I think Al put her up to it, though.”

Mustang recognized the cover as one of Hawkeye’s self-help books, centered around PTSD. She’d read passages to him after Ishval, when neither could sleep for the nightmares that plagued them. Her voice would lull him to sleep, and his even, sleeping breaths would help her follow.

“And is it helpful?” Mustang asked, sipping his coffee. One of the few things he and Ed agreed on was coffee - black, steaming hot, and early in the morning.

“I don’t know yet,” Ed said. 

Mustang nodded and nursed his cup, holding it close to his cheek. Eastern Command was chilly in the morning, when there weren’t many soldiers around to warm the building with their movements and breaths and words. He liked the peace of the morning and wasn’t inclined to needle Ed into breaking it, however much he liked making the boy angry. The times when Ed was quiet were rare, if predictable. If he was asleep or researching, he wouldn’t start a fight. 

Or if he wanted something, and that had happened so few times Mustang could count them on one hand and have fingers to spare.

“What’s ‘myopic’ mean?” Ed asked him after a few pages.

“Near-sighted,” Mustang supplied. “Lacking imagination, foresight, or insight.”

Ed hummed, digging out his battered black travelogue and jotting down a note in a haphazard shorthand. Mustang had griped once about Ed’s handwriting before Al had informed him - after Ed ranted and stormed out - that his brother had been right handed before. Mustang had never mentioned it again, and he had a feeling Al wrote up most of Ed’s reports when they arrived in a neater hand than he’d gotten used to. Across the table, he could see that Ed had gotten better at writing left-handed and wondered if the slanted, sloppy penmanship was because it was his wrong hand or because he was a teenager.

Al once let slip that he couldn’t decode his brother’s notes and Mustang wondered how much of them were his research and how much was drivel and nonsense to throw people off the code. When Ed had started under his command, he’d let him take a look at some of his own research notes to teach him about codes and decryption. Ed had cracked his code in a few hours and he felt confident that Ed knew more than he let on most of the time.

“Psychological myopia,” Ed mumbled, “is making decisions without considering all the information.”

“Pretty much,” Mustang said quietly. “It’s not the same as being impulsive, but it’s close. Focusing on more prominent, pertinent information instead of considering every option equally.”

Ed frowned and nodded, scribbling something down. Mustang closed his eyes, listening to the scratch of Ed’s pen, the flipping pages, his own breathing. Distantly, he could hear the workers talking amongst themselves, a low murmur that he could only make out in tones, the words lost in the distance between them. It was peaceful.

 _Not like Ishval,_ a small voice hissed in the back of his mind. He gripped his mug tighter, trying to ignore it as it started its nagging. _The gunshots and the bombs and the_ **_flames._ **

He shook his head, opening his eyes. Ed was still across from him, absorbed in his book. His coffee was still in his hands, though his mug was shaking in his hands. Ed’s coffee was sitting on the table, half-drunk and steaming.

He was in East City, in the cafeteria of Eastern Command. Ishval was miles away, past forests and mountains and plains where trains no longer ran. 

_And it’s your fault,_ the voice said. _You made the trains stop._

He felt his knuckles creak as he gripped his mug, focusing on Ed. Even breathing, a steady pace as he turned the page, golden eyes focused and bright, golden hair -

 _Like_ **_hers_ ** _._

CRASH!

In an instant, he was out of his seat and across the table, pulling Ed underneath it with him. 

“Colonel!” Ed shouted, struggling against Mustang’s hold around him. His left arm had Ed pinned to his side, his right hand outstretched with his fingers pressed together, ready to snap. Ed slowed down when he saw Mustang’s hand, the blue light sparking at his fingertips.

“Stay down,” he muttered. 

_Desert sand and broken buildings, he was in an abandoned storefront, Hughes beside him. A rifle between them, he shifted down just before a bullet lodged into the wall behind him._

Ed shifted uncomfortably, pressed into Mustang’s side. He looked from Mustang’s hand to his face, struck by the darkness behind his eyes. 

Mustang’s eyes were dark gray, almost black, but they always had a glimmer of humor in them. It fit his face, young and hopeful most of the time. As much as he antagonized Ed, the humor rarely lifted and it made his eyes look lighter. Now, they were dark, determined and angry and -

Fearful, Ed realized. There was fear in Mustang’s eyes, barely hidden by protective and determined anger.

**Traumatic Flashbacks: a vivid experience in which you relive aspects of a traumatic event or feel as if it is happening again; sometimes due to external stimuli (known as triggers)  
**

He considered his position pinned to Mustang’s side. Mustang had a transmutation ready to go, and setting the cafeteria on fire would _not_ be a good way to start the day. There’d be paperwork and visits to the clinic and the military psychiatrist and words from Hawkeye and Alphonse.

Hawkeye would know how to handle Mustang. She knew how to handle most things. She could talk Ed down from fighting people, she could probably talk Mustang down.

But Hawkeye wasn’t here. Ed was. And Mustang was clearly not entirely there, fear making him shake as he held Ed against him, his fingers still pressed together.

“Colonel,” Ed whispered, “talk to me.”

“Stay quiet,” Mustang whispered, “or they’ll find us.”

“Who will?” Ed asked. He shifted until Mustang’s arm was around his collarbone instead of his neck. 

“The insurgents.” Mustang’s eyes slid from side to side and Ed wondered what he was seeing that wasn’t empty chairs and long tables against linoleum.

Ed tugged at Mustang’s arm. “Let me watch your back,” he whispered. “I can’t do anything stuck to your side.” He wiggled until Mustang relaxed his grip, scooting to put his back against Mustang’s. His book was on top of the table, but when he tried to crawl away, Mustang gripped his wrist. He couldn’t feel it - it was his metal hand - but he could hear the brush of ignition cloth against metal, feel the tug on his shoulder from the pressure Mustang kept on his wrist.

“We’re not in Ishval, you know,” he murmured. “We’re in Eastern Command. The cafeteria.”

Mustang shifted against his back and he continued, “We were drinking coffee. You weren’t annoying me, for once.”

“Hughes,” Mustang whispered. 

“He’s in Central, working in Investigations,” Ed said.

 _“Riza,”_ Mustang breathed.

Ed blinked, wondering when Mustang and Hawkeye ended up on a first-name basis. They’d always referred to each other with their ranks or surnames in all the time he’d known them. The trust between them was implicit, unspoken, but he didn’t listen when he heard whispers from other soldiers that their relationship went beyond professional. Hearing him use Hawkeye’s first name made him wonder if there was some truth to those rumors.

“She’s at home,” Ed murmured. “She doesn’t come in until seven. It’s -” He pulled out his watch, checking the time. “- six oh three.”

Mustang twitched when Ed’s watch clicked open, again when it shut. Ed turned to look at Mustang’s hand and sighed. His fingers were still together and his hand was shaking. Slowly, carefully, he peeled Mustang’s fingers from his wrist one by one. Gently, he reached out his metal hand and set it on Mustang’s hand, pulling his fingers apart.

“The lieutenant won’t be happy if you set the Command Center on fire,” Ed said. Mustang had his hand in a tight grip that Ed couldn’t shake loose. “But if we went to the training grounds you could set something on fire.”

“The grounds are open,” Mustang whispered. 

Ed raised an eyebrow and tried to pull his hand away, but Mustang’s grip was strong. As much as he made fun of Mustang for not being good at fighting, he was stronger than he looked.

“Your office isn’t,” Ed murmured. “If we draw the curtains, your desk has an open view to the exit.”

Mustang’s eyes slid over to Ed, leaning against his shoulder. His eyes were still dark, but more faraway than angry, but he was still fearful.

**Dissociation: disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity**

Mustang blinked, trying to listen to Ed. He was in Eastern Command’s cafeteria - they were sitting on linoleum tiles, under a metal table, surrounded by metal chairs. Ed was leaning against his shoulder, holding his hand to keep him from snapping his fingers.

He blinked. 

_He was in an empty building. The sound of bullets filled the air and he was hunched under a window with Hughes. Hawkeye had her rifle ready in the window, focused on any coming insurgents._

_“Hold still,” he said, ripping Hughes’ sleeve where it was bloody and torn. A bullet had gone straight through, he could feel the entry and exit wounds. It had missed any major arteries or veins or bones, ripping through the muscle instead._

_“Dammit,” Hughes grunted. “That hurts.”_

_“No shit,” Hawkeye muttered, pulling the trigger and taking someone down out of sight. Mustang heard the body fall but didn’t bother looking up._

_“Bite down,” he said, pulling out a handkerchief and shoving it at Hughes. “I’m gonna sear it shut.”_

_“Don’t kill me,” Hughes said, “when I punch you.”_

_“Don’t stab me,” Mustang replied, sitting on Hughes knees to keep him from kicking, “when this hurts.” He glanced at Hawkeye. She tilted her head slightly and he exhaled, pressing his arm against Hughes’ collarbone to hold him down._

**_Snap._ **

_The stench of burnt skin filled the air with Hughes’ scream, barely muffled by the cloth in his mouth. Mustang flinched but stayed focused. If he messed up the transmutation, he’d burn more than Hughes’ wound._

_The flames went out and Hughes exhaled, spitting the handkerchief out to bite his lip._

_“Can you move your hand?” Hawkeye asked without looking at him._

_“Yeah, I can move everything,” Hughes said, watching as Mustang used a strip of his coat to tie around his arm. “Hurts like a bitch, though.”_

_“Should be fine until we can get to a medic tent,” Mustang said. He didn’t look at Hughes, staring at the cloth that was turning red from the blood._

_“Anything’s better than dying,” Hughes said. He used his good arm to pat Mustang’s shoulder, pushing him off. Mustang met his eyes and he nodded, turning to peer over the windowsill beside Hawkeye. Mustang leaned against the wall and sighed, shutting his eyes._

He gripped the hand that kept his fingers apart but it didn’t yield, didn’t bend or push under the pressure. He stared at it, the white glove cleaner, smoother than his own - it wasn’t ignition cloth, just plain fabric. The sleeve wasn’t blue but red -

Red-

_Red-_

**_Blood._ **

Ed yelped when Mustang yanked his arm closer, pushing his sleeve up to examine his arm. Mustang stared at it, confused - it was metal. Automail. Not flesh. Not blood.

He followed the sleeve, noting the coat was red, worn over a thinner black jacket and a black shirt. It was a boy, pale and small with wide, confused gold eyes and blond hair.

He blinked and the hair was more yellow and the eyes red-brown.

_Riza was crouched beside him, eyes wide in fear. She had his gloves in her hand, had peeled them off while he slept. He’d set two tents on fire in the past week because of nightmares. He’d almost killed himself with his flames, tumbling out of the burning tent the first time, waking up to Hughes pushing it over with a long stick and stomping it out the second._

_This time, he’d woken and panicked when he saw her beside him, tackling her away from her rifle. It had clicked, a second later, who she was, where they were, but he’d been on top of her by then, forearm against her throat, fingers pressed together._

_He’d jumped back when he realized it was her. He’d hurt her,_ **_threatened_ ** _her. He put his head in his hands, knees pulled to his chest._

_She didn’t run. She sat up, cautious and afraid, silent as she sat beside him. She didn’t move for her rifle, half-assembled. She watched him, silent, as he evened out his breathing._

_He looked up and the fear was gone from her eyes when she offered him his gloves. She knew about his nightmares - she’d woken up from a fair few of her own. They’d talked about them a few times, when neither of them could sleep._

_They had different relationships with combat. She was a sniper, distant and all-seeing. He was an alchemist, front line and destructive. Their nightmares didn’t match, but they understood them - he’d wake up from flames surrounding him, burning and killing and_ **_destroying_ ** _everything around him. She’d wake up from ghosts, of everyone she’d ever killed, their faces slowly being replaced by the people she cared about as she pulled the trigger._

_They kept each other safe in the middle of a warzone. They knew by now that places weren’t safe, not forever. People were. Hughes was safe. She was safe. He could trust them to keep him alive. They trusted him to do the same._

He blinked and the boy was still watching him, his arm still held against Mustang. 

He blinked. He was still staring at him, but he could place him now. Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. His subordinate.

A child.

He blinked.

An Ishvalan child, with dark skin and white hair and wide red eyes stared back at him.

He blinked.

Edward Elric, pale and golden, stared at him. He whispered, “Colonel?”

Fear.

Ed was _afraid_ of him, of what he could do. 

He still had his arm - the one Ed would turn into a blade when he fought - pulled against him.

“We’re in the cafeteria,” he said, voice rough and hoarse.

“Yeah,” Ed said. Mustang released his arm and he shuffled closer as Mustang curled in on himself, hand covering his face. “We can go to your office?”

He looked up and the fear was still in Ed’s eyes, but he recognized it, now. It was the same fear Riza had when he woke up screaming, when Feury once dropped a radio and he threw Havoc under his desk. Fear of what was happening in his head, of what it was doing to him.

The cafeteria was an open space. The workers were still in the kitchen, prepping for their day. They didn’t pay them any mind. They didn’t know they were under the table. They didn’t know his head was in Ishval.

“Office,” he mumbled, rubbing a hand against his face, “right.”

Ed frowned at him and sighed before pushing him out from under the table. He stiffened - the space was open, he didn’t have any cover - but nothing happened except Ed crawling out and grabbing their mugs of coffee, shoving his book under his arm.

“Hold this one,” Ed said, giving Mustang his mug. Mustang took it, staring at it as he cradled it in both hands. The coffee was lukewarm by now and the mug was plain, white ceramic. When Mustang didn’t move, Ed sighed and started nudging him, guiding him through the building as he stared at the mug, mumbling to himself.

Sand, when heated, turned into glass. It turns into a liquid, first, at 3090 degrees Fahrenheit, and hardens when it cools. 

Ceramic was different. It was made from clay and water and a few other things - quartz and feldspar. Silicon and oxygen made up quartz. Feldspar was silicon and oxygen, too, with aluminum, and either calcium, potassium, or sodium. It was hard to transmute it when he couldn’t be certain of all the elements.

Glass was mostly silicon dioxide. Ishval’s main exports were wheat, cotton, and glass. With the desert at their disposal, they’d perfected glass-making. Amestris wanted it for building materials and dishware, but Ishvalans used it as an artform, with blown glass figures and stained glass windows. Glass was colored by adding different metals to the mixture of molten glass. Different elements would change the cooling temperature of the liquid, but it was hardest to make clear glass.

He’d made a lot of glass in Ishval. He’d hear it shatter when his flames lasted long enough, hear it crunch under people’s feet as they marched. He’d never looked at the colors.

He only owned ceramic dishes.

_Click._

He looked up and realized he was in his office, the door shut behind him. The window overlooked a portion of grass and street but Ed pulled the curtains shut, blocking them from view and shutting out the weak morning light.

He didn’t move, watching Ed putter around his desk. Ed had dropped his book onto the coffee table and set his mug beside it. He was looking at Mustang’s desk, eyes flicking between his papers and the phone.

“Do you know the Lieutenant’s phone number?” Ed asked.

Mustang blinked. He looked at the phone, then the clock on his wall, then Ed.

“It’s not 6:03?” he murmured. 

“It was,” Ed said. He came around the desk and took Mustang’s coffee, setting it on the table and pushing Mustang onto his couch. “And now it’s 6:45.”

“She lives eighteen minutes from the Command Center,” Mustang murmured. “She’ll have left home by now.”

“You know it down to the minute?” Ed asked.

Mustang didn’t reply, dropping his head into his hands and leaning forward. He’d lost time before, but not in months, and rarely more than thirty minutes. Nausea was pooling in his stomach and the coffee was making it churn. He focused on the cover of the book - one of Hawkeye’s she’d bought after Ishval. She’d make tea and read it out loud to him when they both lived in the barracks and couldn’t sleep. 

Tea was her way of centering herself. He’d smell it steeping and find her in the common room with a mug ready for him, her book open on her lap. More than half the soldiers in Eastern Command had been in Ishval. None of them would say a word when they found them in the common room in the morning, him asleep on the couch, her curled up in a chair, her book beside the empty mugs of tea. 

He knew the rumors that floated around the military. Hawkeye knew them, too. They didn’t dignify them with a response - a denial would be seen as a confirmation, a confirmation would force Grumman to reassign her.

One time Hughes had said - after a few drinks - that the relationship he and Hawkeye had was closer than most marriages. They understood each other without words, trusted each other implicitly, could fight side by side relying on their instincts and know the other could cover their back. Their goals were entwined and entrenched in each other and Mustang wondered how Hughes knew that without knowing the promise Hawkeye had made. He wondered if Hughes knew what she’d asked him to do to her father’s research on her back.

He closed his eyes and wished that the coffee was tea, that Ed was Hawkeye. That the world around him would stop turning into Ishval and the noise in his head would _stop._

The couch sank beside him and he looked up to see Ed now sitting beside him, shoulder to shoulder. Ed looked uncomfortable and Mustang remembered that in all the time he’d known him, Ed had never been inclined to physicality outside of fighting. Sometimes Havoc would tug on his braid to get his attention or rile him up, or Hawkeye would put a hand on his shoulder or arm, but he never sought after contact.

“Al’ll do this thing sometimes,” Ed said quietly, “to keep me grounded. It’s - dammit - it’s a listing thing? Something you taste, two you smell, three you hear, four you feel, five you see.”

Mustang knew the exercise. Hawkeye had used it on him a few times when something went wrong on a mission and he sank into his head. 

“One at a time,” Ed said when Mustang nodded slightly. “Taste?”

“Coffee.” _Not tea._

“Two smells.”

“Coffee. Shampoo?” _Not blood. Not burnt flesh._

“Three things you hear.”

“You. The cars. The clock.” _Not gunshots. Not bombs. Not screams._

“Four things you feel?”

“Couch. Clothes. My watch. Your arm.” _Not sand. Not glass. Not bullets. Not fire._

“Five things you see.”

“The book. Mugs. Table. Wall. Carpet.” _Not broken buildings. Not the desert. Not guns. Not corpses. Not Ishval._

“Do you - are you better?” Ed asked. 

Mustang looked at him and for a second he was struck by how young Ed was, how unequipped he was for some things. He could research like a scholar, fight like a soldier, argue like a politician, but matters of mental health were beyond him, however much trauma of his own he had.

Some people compartmentalized their emotions and trauma. Childhood traumas manifested differently from adult traumas and Ed - however fast he had to grow up - was accumulating enough to become a psychiatrist’s marvel. 

“Yeah,” he said. He looked at the clock - seven minutes to seven. “Thanks. Sorry.”

Ed wrinkled his nose and shook his head, grabbing the book. “Sounds wrong coming from you.”

Mustang raised an eyebrow at him, not moving when Ed leaned back into the couch with the book, opening it to a passage in the middle. He kept his position, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His stomach was settling at last, though the coffee had long since gone cold. Five minutes to seven. 

Hawkeye was never late. She’d be able to tell something was wrong when she saw him, but he had five minutes to think. 

He looked at Ed and the book and wondered why he was reading about PTSD, making a mental note to ask Hawkeye why she’d suggested it. His report had been cut and dry, but Hawkeye could see through Ed and Al easier than he could. She’d learned how to read people when she saw how much he and Hughes would hide their problems.

He’d learned how to read her when they were young, when she was still just the quiet girl that brought him tea and talked him into sneaking out at night. He missed those days, sometimes.

Ed shifted beside him and asked, “What does ‘somatic’ mean?”

“The relationship between the mind and the body,” Mustang replied. “How the mental affects the physical.”

Ed let out a quiet, “Hm,” and kept reading.

Four minutes more. The annual meetings with the military therapists were coming up and Hawkeye wouldn’t be happy when he didn’t tell them about this episode. He’d learned long ago - almost directly after Ishval - how to get through the meeting with the checks in all the right boxes. Hawkeye and Hughes had learned the same. 

Armstrong hadn’t. It took years before he was allowed to do fieldwork again.

Between him and Hawkeye, their files screamed, _“Do not send them into the field.”_ To the Generals, it read, _“Adjusted and competent.”_

Ed’s file was the same. Mustang wondered when he learned how to lie so well, but he never asked. If he pulled Ed from fieldwork, he and Al would never make progress on their research. They were capable of handling themselves, the same as him and Hawkeye. 

His office door creaked open and Hawkeye stepped in, a pair of mugs in one hand, a stack of papers under her other arm. She raised an eyebrow at Ed.

“Good morning,” she said, setting the mugs on the table and pushing one to Mustang. “I thought you’d be in the dorms, Ed.”

“Came in early for coffee,” Ed said without looking up. “Colonel got weird.”

Hawkeye raised an eyebrow at him as he took the mug. It was black tea, not coffee. 

She’d had a bad night, too. 

“Someone dropped a pan in the cafeteria,” he said simply. 

Hawkeye nodded - someone had once broken an empty glass and she’d shot the wall beside them on instinct. She only missed because they’d ducked down to gather up the mess. Mustang had walked her home after.

“It happens,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. 

“Is it -” Ed paused, drumming his fingers on the book. “Is it normally that bad?”

“No,” Mustang said. “This was worse than normal.”

Ed looked from him to his book. “Can I ask?” he said, voice barely audible. 

“Ishval,” Mustang said, “left a lot of scars. Most days are fine, but some are worse.”

Ed blinked. He’d been nine when the war ended, but he remembered how the countryside caught fire, the masses of soldiers going through Resembool’s train station with dead eyes and bandaged wounds. 

“Even now?” Ed asked. The war had ended five years prior. He’d met Mustang two years after it ended, had joined the military a year later. Two years he’d been in the military and he’d never seen Mustang like he’d been in the cafeteria.

“It never really goes away,” Hawkeye said. “The grief or the guilt.”

“Think of it like a box with a button and a ball,” Mustang said, remembering something Grumman had told him. “At first, the ball is large enough that it always hits the button. Over time, it gets smaller, but it still hits the button some days. Those days are harder.”

Ed thought about it for a second, mind drifting to his mom, to Al in his armor, to the thing they’d transmuted. Most of the time, the guilt was manageable, but some days he woke up from nightmares. Some days he felt a stab in his heart when he saw Al in his armor.

It was worse when it stormed. His stumps would ache and he’d remember the days after, before he had his automail attached and Al was figuring out that he couldn’t sleep or eat or feel.

“I think I get it,” Ed whispered. He glanced at the book, his thumb holding his place on a passage on childhood trauma.

“Did anything catch fire?” Hawkeye asked.

“No,” Mustang said. 

“Then you did well handling it,” she said to Ed. “Havoc tried to talk him down once and ended up with second degree burns.”

“Once,” Mustang said, holding up a finger. _“Once.”_

“Every soldier who served in Ishval has had bad days. Someone broke a glass and I almost shot them, a year after Ishval.” She sipped her tea before looking at Ed. “Knowing how to talk someone down is a useful skill in the military.”

“You missed a shot?” Ed asked.

“They had ducked down to clean up the glass,” Mustang explained. “She got the wall where their head was.”

Ed looked between them, shock apparent in his eyes. He’d been on missions with them before, had seen them both in combat. Hawkeye never missed a shot and Mustang’s flames were devastating. Hawkeye was supposed to be level-headed and confident and reliable, unflappable in everything. Mustang was supposed to be arrogant and annoying, pushing Ed into rants and arguments between being a pillar of strength. 

Ed would never tell him, but it was something he looked up to, how Mustang never seemed to slow down, never let things get to him. It was annoying when he’d pick a fight with Ed, but it gave him drive when they first met and kept him moving forward.

Seeing them like this - guilt-ridden and shameful and _tired,_ he barely recognized them, sipping tea and talking about emotions. He wanted Mustang to go back to making short jabs at him - he couldn’t be aggressive and argue with him when he looked so tired and sad and _defeated._

Mustang put a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. “Don’t worry so much,” he said. “Hawkeye and I have dealt with this long enough to know how to handle it.”

“Seems unfair,” Ed said and Mustang pushed his head, still ruffling his hair.

“That’s life,” Mustang said. “You learn how to deal with it or you let it destroy you. If you want to keep moving forward, you can’t let it drag you down.”

Ed hit his hand away, tugging his hair loose of its tie to shake it out and fix his braid. “All right, I get it,” he grumbled. “Leave you and the Lieutenant to help each other and focus on myself, I got it.”

Mustang snorted, turning back to his tea. Hawkeye shook her head fondly, her smile hidden by her mug. 

Ed reopened the book, crossing his leg at the knee. He didn’t plan on doing much besides reading, and he knew Mustang’s inner office was the best place in East City to read - the Colonel never bothered him when he was researching and kept people from bothering him. Al had planned on reading at the library to wind down from their last mission, so he knew he’d see him in the evening when he left the Command Center.

Hawkeye and Mustang were quiet as they looked over Hawkeye’s papers. The mugs of tea were drained and set beside the cold coffees. Ed glanced at them and considered getting a second coffee from one of the break rooms before remembering something Mustang had said in the cafeteria.

“Since when do you call the Lieutenant by her first name?” he asked, looking at Mustang.

Mustang blinked and looked at him, confused. “What?”

“In the cafeteria, you asked about Hughes and Hawkeye, but you called her Riza.” Ed held the book close to his chest. 

Mustang blinked and looked from Ed - curious and holding the book like a shield - to Hawkeye - intrigued with a raised eyebrow and a knowing look. It was something he’d done a few times in Ishval, called her by her first name when they were alone and could pretend they were on the roof of her father’s house instead of the blood-soaked desert. She’d called him by his first name rarely, and never where anyone could hear her after Hughes had asked her about it.

“That’s,” Mustang said, pointing at Ed with a glance at Hawkeye, “none of your business.”

Ed furrowed his brows and looked from Mustang to Hawkeye. She shook her head smally and he shrugged, turning back to his book. He knew better than most that some subjects shouldn’t be broached.

And if nothing else, he could bother Mustang about it when he felt normal again to annoy him into an argument. 

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a headcanon on Tumblr about Ed and Mustang both dealing with their own forms of PTSD and having rare run-ins with each others' flashbacks and this was born. Hooray angst!  
> (I also wrote the first thousand or so words while drunk and shockingly they were comprehensible. Drink responsibly.)  
> Comments and kudos are always welcome!!


End file.
